User:Simon the Likable/Cudworth rail accident

The Cudworth rail accident took place on the Midland Railway at about 3:37 am on 19 January, 1905. A southbound passenger express passed signals at danger in thick fog and collided with the rear of a slower-moving mail train near Storr's Mill signal-box, roughly 1.2 mi south-east of Cudworth station, South Yorkshire. The two trains were... ; A third train collided slightly with the wreckage.

Seven persons were killed, and 17 injured, many seriously. Among those killed was the Scottish artist Robert Brough.

Reference

Accident
At 1:15 am on 19 January 1905 the signalman at Storr's Mill signal box telephoned Cudworth station to report that fog-signalmen were required. A porter was sent to request the designated call-man to order out all the fog-men. He was found to be ill, and so the porter returned to the station and was now instructed to call a ganger, George Moore, who left his house at 2:00 am and commenced rousing the men. But Moore, and others to whom he delegated parts of his duty, were not familiar with the addresses of all required staff, and further delays resulted.

At 2:25 am an up mail train departed Leeds heading south to Sheffield. It consisted of a tender, four fish trucks, two coaches, and three brake vans, drawn by a single four-wheels-coupled engine. Stopping at most stations and slow-moving at the best of times, in the thick fog it travelled at perhaps 10 mi miles per hour.

At 3:05 am the up express train (Leeds to St. Pancras)

On this night there were two key fog-men: platelayer Alfred Blackburn, who was assigned to the up distant signal for Carlton Main (3.2 mi north of Storr's Mill), and platelayer Sidney Woolstone, who was employed to fog the Storr's Mill up distant signal (.6 mi distant). Blackburn was called at 2:35 am, and reported to the signal box roughly half an hour later, having dressed and walked 1.5 mi over frozen snow in thick fog. At the box he equipped himself with his lamp, flags and detonators, and made his way a further .6 mi to his post. He arrived at about 3:32 am, only in time to witness the up express passing the signal at danger (i.e. in its 'prepare to stop' position) at full speed. As it transpired, the driver of the express had not seen this warning signal.

Alfred Shirley:

Henry Taylor was the signalman in the Cudworth Station South Junction signalbox. "About one and a half minutes after receiving the "Train entering section" signal I heard a train approaching at a high rate of speed, and could tell it was close to me. I knew it must be the Scotch express, and that it was passing my signals at danger. I picked up my hand lamp, and ran to the south end of the box with a view of exhibiting a red light to the driver, but the train passed me before I could exhibit the signal. I went to the up line bell, and ... sent the block signal "Train or vehicles running away on right line " to Stores Mill at 3.35 a.m."

By this time the express had passed at speed through eight distant (warning) signals and two stop signals, all set at danger.

Meantime, platelayer Woolstone, who had eventually been called at 2:50 am, was still required to call five other men before proceeding to his post. He then started for Storr's Mill signal box to collect signalling equipment, having to walk past his signal post on the way. He was 150 yd past his signal when the up mail train passed him, and he continued on his path. Approximately 45 seconds later he heard the up express approaching. "Having a lighted lamp with me, and hearing the second train approaching so close behind the other, I knew something was wrong, and attempted to give the driver of the express a red light but he passed me before I could do so." Because he had not yet visited the signal box he had no detonators to lay upon the track.

An express train, running south from Leeds to St. Pancras, passed a signal at danger and overtook a slower moving mail train (Leeds to Sheffield) roughly 1.2 mi south-east of Cudworth station. The resulting rear-end collision overturned the leading engine and tender of the express and derailed the second engine. The first three coaches were overturned and broken up, and all save the last three carriages derailed.

Of the mail train all vehicles were derailed save the engine and tender, with the last three coaches smashed into pieces.

The leading engine of the up express train came to rest some 300 yd from the point of impact.

Numerous vehicles had come to rest fouling the down express line; the southernmost of these was a derailed fish truck from the mail train. A third train, the midnight north-bound express from St. Pancras to Carlisle, was warned to slow, first by a signal at danger and then by the whistle of the mail train. Before it could be brought to a standstill, it came into contact with the fish truck, causing minor damage but no further injuries.

Approximately five minutes after the first collision a fire broke out in one of the derailed express coaches. A guard, with the assistance of passengers, managed to separate the last three carriages and push them away. The same guard managed to retrieve all baggage from the now-last vehicle, a brake van, before it and all the remaining express coaches were consumed by flames and totally destroyed.

The accident caused the immediate death of four passengers, a guard, and a fireman, all of whom were from the express. Another 18 people were injured, one of whom later died from his injuries. Fortunately the wrecked express carried few passengers, or the toll would have been far greater.

Rescue efforts
<!-- Foggy as was the morning, the fire lit up the whole scene of the disaster, causing a glare which could be seen at some distance. This attracted a number of miners who were leaving the night shift of work at Grimethorpe Colliery, and were on their way home to Cudworth. They hastened on to the line, and greatly assisted the uninjured passengers and the handful of railway servants who were quickly engaged in the work of rescue and in removing the dead. The light from the burning train aided the workers in carrying out their sad task.
 * West Gippsland Gazette

Thanks to the encouragement which the Midland Railway Company have given to ambulance work, several of the servants who were early on the scene rendered first aid to the injured. A medical man was a passenger by one of the trains, and lent valuable assistance also. In the meantime telephone and telegraph messages had been sent from Cudworth to Sheffield, Barnsley, Normanton, and other places for doctors.

It was terrible work getting the injured from beneath the debris, the task in one case being rendered difficult and dangerous because of the fire which continued to burn fiercely amongst the coaches. The dead were placed on stretchers and removed to a field near at hand, and the wounded were also laid on stretchers and carried to fields near the railway. The task of carrying the injured down the embankment to the grass below was expeditiously, but gently done, the men talking the greatest care not to cause the wounded passengers unnecessary pain. Some of them were very badly hurt, Mr Robert Brough, an artist, of Tite street, Chelsea, being among those who were seriously burnt.

According to the testimony of many passengers, it was only owing to the initiative of Driver Wright, of the Royal Field Artillery, who was himself a passenger, that many more fatalities have not to be recorded. Wright appears to have been one of the few who at the critical moment retained his presence of mind. He at once undertook the work of extricating the dead and injured from the burning wreckage, and among the first dragged out were two school boys, one of whom was dead, his body being almost cut in two. The other little fellow, who proved to be his brother, succumbed to his injuries almost immediately after being rescued. The fireman of one of the expresses was discovered pinned beneath his engine, but although Wright worked heroically, he was unable to release the man, whom he believes was already dead. One of the guards of the Scottish express, James Weston, who was travelling in the van next to the engine, was terribly mutilated, his legs being broken to atoms. An elderly working man, also among the dead, had both legs severed from the body.

As soon as the news reached Sheffield a special train was prepared, and, conveying doctors, ambulance men, the district superintendent of the Midland Railway, and other officials and workers, left for Darfield at ten minutes to five. Half an hour later another message was received, calling for more medical aid and other assistance. At ten minutes to six a second special was despatched from Sheffield, conveying Dr Connell and one of the surgeons from the Royal Infirmary, and more railway officials and ambulance men. Fortunately, neither of the wrecked trains contained many passengers, or the death-roll must have been much larger.

James Edge, the guard of the Leeds mail, was thrown down the embankment, and remembered little until he recovered consciousness, and looking up saw a bright light break out. Then he realised that the wreckage had caught fire. He was powerless to move, and lay there in the fog and bitter cold, and watched the flames gradually steal along the entire line of debris enveloping the whole in a terrible picture. "I called out for help," continued Edge, "and some good Christian came and brought two cushions for me." After lying on the ground for a couple of hours, during part of which he heard shrieks for help, he was removed to Sheffield.

Words simply fail to convey any just idea of the frightful spectacle that followed. The flames from the burning trains are described as shooting thirty or forty feet into the air, and it was known that several human victims certainly lay roasting alive in the fearful furnace. But aid was prompt and efficient. The accident had occurred at one of the worst possible spots on the top of a high embankment — far away from any town or even village, Storr's mill being merely a junction signal-box. Nevertheless, in a marvellously short time, doctors arrived, and even then both the passengers and officials of the various trains, who had escaped with life although in many instances not without painful injuries, were actively at work extracting the wounded from their horrible position. It is needless to reproduce the harrowing and sickening tale of personal mutilation which those earnest and indefatigable workers had afterwards to toll. Suffice it to say that hardly any conceivable form of fracture or laceration or burning to which the human frame could be subjected, was absent, while almost every incident had its own peculiar form of horror or pathos.
 * The Mercury

Perhaps one of the most pathetic among these was the simultaneous death of two twin brothers, schoolboys, who were on their  way back to school after the Christmas holidays. Happily their death must have been instantaneous, and without previous bodily suffering. In another case a mother, who was held down immovable by the wreckage, implored her would-be rescuers to leave her where she was until they had first found and saved her two children, although she was then suffering, and had long been suffering, agony as acute as could afflict any human being. It was the one consolatory point in the whole dreadful tragedy that there were very few passengers in the three trains. Even in the Scotch sleeping-car express, notwithstanding its large size, there was but a sprinkling of travellers instead of the usual large number, the fewness being no doubt due to the intense cold and menace of fog. But this same intense cold and the dense fog which did come, formed grievous impediments in the way of those who were so gallantly carrying out the noble work of rescue and succour. The freezing air sadly accentuated the sufferings of the wounded, while the prevailing slipperiness made it a matter of extreme difficulty to remove the sufferers to any place where they could lie with comparative ease. It may easily be imagined how troublesome a task it was to convey wounded people, most of whom were suffering from fractures of limbs, down the sides of a steep embankment and over a ditch and hedge into the adjacent field which offered the nearest level spot where they could rest in even relative comfort until the arrival of the ambulances. It is admitted on all hands that much of the promptness and efficiency of the rescues effected was due to the admirable generalship and devoted efforts of a Royal Artillery gunner named Wright.

--> After taking steps to protect their trains from further collisions, members of the express running staff who had not been incapacitated by the collision began to assist passengers from the train. The intense cold, thick fog and slippery conditions made particularly difficult the task of moving victims down the high embankment, over a ditch and hedge, and into an adjacent field. A number of passengers, including a doctor, assisted. Contemporary press reports make particular mention of a Royal Artilleryman, Wright, who recovered a number of seriously wounded victims, and lead the rescue efforts.

The glare of the burning train attracted miners returning home to Cudworth after the night shift at the nearby Grimethorpe Colliery. Working by the light of the fire they assisted in rescuing people from the wrecked express and in removing the bodies of the dead.

Messages reporting the accident were sent by the signal man in the adjacent Storr's Mill signal box. As soon as the news reached Sheffield a special train was prepared, which left for the scene at 4:50am. An hour later, in response to further requests for assistance, a second special was despatched conveying more doctors, railway officials and ambulance men.

Victims conveyed to Sheffield...

Inquest
On 20 January, the day after the collision, the County Coroner, Mr Maitland, opened an inquest at Cudworth on the then six persons killed in the incident.

Board of Trade
On the order of the Board of Trade an investigation into the causes of the collisions was instituted. Major J. W. Pringle tendered his report at the end February 1905. Pringle concluded that the primary blame for the incident belonged to the lead driver of the up express, Oliver Mugg, who had failed to take into account the dense fog, had failed to take proper responsibility for viewing signals, had driven at high speed past signals at danger, and, as a result, had entered "into the block section between Cudworth Station South and Storr's Mill posts, when that section was already occupied by the up mail train". He also assigned blame "in a very much less degree" to the driver of the second engine of the express who should have taken upon himself responsibility for reducing speed.

Although regulations were explicit that the driver was responsible for observing signals even in low visibility ("when the fog is so dense that the fixed signals cannot be seen by the engine driver ... he must ... assume that the fixed signal is at danger") Pringle was also critical of the Midland Railway: "The Company's arrangements for fog signalling, and for calling fog-men, cannot be described as complete and satisfactory. As this unfortunate collision proves, there may be cases when the gain of a few minutes in getting fog-men into position will avert serious and fatal results."

Pringle made a number of specific recommendations for improvements, including providing busy signalmen with mechanical devices to aid them in placing detonators on the tracks, that fog signalmen should be housed as close as possible to the scene of their duties, and where possible that "electric communications" should be provided from signal boxes to the fog-men's quarters.

In Pringle's view the conduct of some railway staff deserved commendation. In particular he singled out the driver of the down express (the third train), James Pearson, whose vigilance in observing and acting upon the Storr's Mill down distant signal averted a further disastrous collision. Four other men were commended for their behaviour under what Pringle laconically described as "very trying circumstances".

Notable victims
Robert Brough, the Scottish painter, had been in Scotland working on a portrait commission and was travelling home to London on the up express. Trapped in his sleeping berth, he was seriously burned in the accident. He was taken to a hospital in Sheffield, where he died on 21 January. His death was reported around the world.